Trijicon, Inc. ( ) is an American manufacturing company based in Wixom, Michigan, that designs and distributes sighting devices for

firearm A firearm is any type of gun that uses an explosive charge and is designed to be readily carried and operated by an individual. The term is legally defined further in different countries (see legal definitions). The first firearms originate ...

s including pistols,

rifle A rifle is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting and higher stopping power, with a gun barrel, barrel that has a helical or spiralling pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus o ...

s and shotguns. Trijicon specializes in self-luminous

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of optical instruments, instruments that use or Photodetector, detect it. Optics usually describes t ...

and night sights, mainly using the low-energy tritium illumination, light-gathering

fiber optics An optical fiber, or optical fibre, is a flexible glass or plastic fiber that can transmit light from one end to the other. Such fibers find wide usage in fiber-optic communications, where they permit transmission over longer distances and at ...

and battery-powered LED. Additionally, Trijicon is a contractor for the United States military and supplies the Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight (ACOG) and RX01 reflex sights. The ACOG, Reflex, TriPower, AccuPoint and Night Sights are available to military,

law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of the government or other social institutions who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by investigating, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms gove ...

and civilian markets. The company's name "Trijicon" comes from combining " tritium", a radioisotope of

hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...

that is the key element utilised in the company's reticle illumination technology, and " icon", meaning picture or image; the

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h sound, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and pronou ...

"j" was added to help syllabically blend the two words into one

portmanteau word In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.) Israeli שלט ''shalát'' 'remote control', an ellipsis ...

. Additionally, the "iji" in Trijicon mimics the "three-dot" design of the Bright & Tough Night Sights that were being manufactured when the company was renamed in 1985.

History

Trijicon was founded in 1981 by Glyn Bindon as Armson USA, the sole US importer and distributor of the Armson OEG. The Armson OEG was an occluded-type gunsight that used tritium and fiber optics in its construction and was manufactured in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

. It was created in 1981 and reached shops in 1983. The gunsight became popular due to its variety of mounting systems for popular rifles and shotguns. In 1985 Bindon reorganized the company as Trijicon and began manufacture of night sights for pistols. Trijicon introduced a tritium-illuminated telescopic sight for the US Military called the TA01 4x32 Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight (ACOG) in 1987.

Controversy

On January 18, 2010,

ABC News ABC News most commonly refers to: * ABC News (Australia), a national news service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation * ABC News (United States), a news-gathering and broadcasting division of the American Broadcasting Company ABC News may a ...

reported that Trijicon was placing references to

Biblical The Bible is a collection of religious texts that are central to Christianity and Judaism, and esteemed in other Abrahamic religions such as Islam. The Bible is an anthology (a compilation of texts of a variety of forms) biblical languages ...

verses on the side of the ACOG sights sold to the United States military. Legal and religious organizations spoke out against the practice and Trijicon subsequently ceased the practice and provided customers with kits to remove the Bible verse numbers from existing scopes.

References

External links

*
Trijicon AccuPoint
''Shooting Times'' magazine Firearm sights Optics manufacturing companies Privately held companies based in Michigan {{US-manufacturing-company-stub

History

Controversy

See also

References

External links